I live defined by my allegiances in a world of rivalry. As such, I imagine a world of ongoing and unrestful competition that defines both winners and losers. In this world, my loyalties oftentimes put me on the side of disappointment. Yet, I am a true devotee, struggling along an Odyssey of long-standing competition. Controlled within this structure of constant rivalry, I am a Boston Red Sox fan, whose loyalty is defined through a history of pain-filled loss. There have been defeats along the way that have challenged my will to maintain my allegiance to the Red Sox, but through all the pain, I realize that I have invested too much to no longer belong. Giving up on the Red Sox would have been the easy way out. But sticking around for an opportunity to watch and enjoy history being made this season for the Boston Red Sox has a much greater reward. But within this world of rivalry, and more specifically, within the Red Sox rivalry, I see a team ahead of us that is consistently one of Major League Baseball’s top organizations, a team that’s history is filled with glory, tradition, and most importantly, championships. In a world where winning is held in such high regard, this team has epitomized everything having to do with the word, win. This team is known as the New York Yankees. When a team is as successful as the Yankees have been, it’s easy to be a loyal fan because you haven’t been tested by much adversity. Few teams in all of sports have endured loss and failure and adversity as long as the Red Sox have. Eighty-six years without winning a World Series to be exact. Eighty-six years defined by a curse that has plagued the minds and shattered the hearts of Boston Red Sox fans everywhere, “The Curse of the Bambino.” Following the 1918 Major League Baseball season, the Boston Red Sox sold baseball’s most recognizable player, “The Great Bambino”, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees for only cash considerations. At this point in Ruth’s career, he had established himself as one of the top hitters AND pitchers in the game, and was also one of the most charismatic and likeable players in the game. Ruth went on to lead New York to five championships in just fourteen years. Boston fans were loyal enough to stick by our team, never wavering during an unproductive seasons, culminating with a dreamlike reward for Red Sox fans eighty-six years later. After their loss to the Yankees in the 2003 American League Championship Series, Boston was given another shot at the New York Yankees, again squaring off against the “Bronx Bombers” in the American League Championship Series. Boston was faced with a challenge, having to tackle a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. No team in the history of baseball had ever won a series after being down 3-0. Still, Boston believed. The Red Sox forced game seven, after tying the series at three games a piece. In game seven, Boston beat New York, 10-3, sending the Red Sox to the World Series for the first time since 1986, and giving them another opportunity to reverse the curse. The Yankees became the first team in the history of Major League Baseball to lose a seven game series after being ahead 3-0. Making history against the Yankees was a gift that Red Sox fans would not trade for anything, except maybe a World Series championship, and this may be the year for Boston. After this embarrassing loss at the hands of the Boston Red Sox, Yankee fans will be tested like never before. This collapse by the New York Yankees is being considered the worst in the history of baseball. How will Yankee fans handle this magnitude of defeat? But now, eighty-six years later, it seems the pain and sorrow caused by the curse is gone. No more jokes about a curse that I never believed was true. No more second guessing my desire to be loyal to the Red Sox. On the other hand, for Yankee fans, now is a time when they will have to deal with many of the feelings that Red Sox fans felt for eighty-six years,

Yankee fans would argue that they have never abandoned their team, but they have never in their history dealt with such an embarrassing defeat as the one witnessed this past season against the Red Sox. Thus, the question remains: can Yankee fans be considered as loyal as Boston fans, considering all the Red Sox have been through in their history? The Yankees have won twenty-six World Series titles in their storied history, by far the most of any team Major League Baseball. They have also won thirty-nine American League titles to go along with those twenty-six World Series championships, and just this past year clinched their seventh consecutive division title. The team following the Yankees, the St. Louis Cardinals, have only nine championships. That is a difference of seventeen championships. Seventeen is a staggering number, and compared to the Boston Red Sox, who have only won five championships, none after 1918, it is a difference of twenty-one. Boston has also endured a consecutive losing season streaks of 15 years. The longest consecutive losing season stretch New York has had to suffer is just four seasons, the shortest streak of any team in Major League Baseball. That being said, how hard is it for a fan to be loyal when a team is a constant winner?

The two sides continue to argue the same thing, though. Both groups of fans argue that loyalty is standing by your team no matter what the situation. Red Sox fans dispute the fact that Yankee fans can’t speak on loyalty because they have never handled the type of adversity that Boston fans have. They haven’t been through championship droughts, or the constant references to “the Curse of the Bambino.” Yankee faithful feel differently. They, on the other hand, argue that it is not their fault that the Red Sox haven’t won as often as the Yankees have. They have stuck by their Yankees as long as we have stuck by our Red Sox. This poses the ultimate question in this debate. What defines true loyalty? Major League Baseball can gather information about who the toughest fans to play in front of are, but there is no foolproof way of deciding who has the most loyal fans in the game. So Boston and New York fans have argued for decades about who the best fans in baseball are, but with no resolution. Does it matter if Yankee fans haven’t had to deal with the adversity that Red Sox fans have had to deal with? Can they handle the disastrous collapse sustained in the 2004 American League Championship Series, or will they fade towards the fair-weather mentality that many fans have faded too in this day in age?